"Una paloma blanca, I'm just a bird in the sky": A chorus that Baker has sung countless times. He himself says the following about it: 'I remember well where and when I wrote Paloma Blanca. It was on a cold afternoon in the conservatory of my house. I had just bought a recorder and was playing around with it a bit. Suddenly that little tune just rolled out.'
Idol
The cradle of George Baker, born as Hans Bouwens, is in Hoorn. He was born there on 8 December 1944. He is the son of a Dutch mother and an Italian father, who was shot by the German occupiers as a prisoner of war during an escape attempt. Hans was yet to be born. He was largely raised by his grandparents. As a teenager, Hans sang along with all the hits from the Top 40. Secretly, he dreamed of becoming as famous as his great idol Elvis Presley.
Assembly line
In 1967, Hans founded his first beat group, the Soul Invention. With this group, he played soul hits by, among others, Otis Redding, Arthur Conley and Sam & Dave. Two years later, the name was changed to the George Baker Selection. Hans called himself George Baker after the main character from a detective novel. In the autumn of 1969, the George Baker Selection recorded their first single 'Little Green Bag'. To everyone's surprise, 'Little Green Bag' immediately became a worldwide hit. In America, the single even reached 21st place. "I didn't know what was happening to me. I was still behind the conveyor belt in a lemonade factory. Suddenly I hear 'Little Green Bag' on the radio. I thought I was going completely mad!"
Gold
At the beginning of 1970, a second single was released, 'Dear Ann'. This single also became a big hit at home and abroad. That was the reason for George Baker to say goodbye to the lemonade factory and fully focus on a career as a professional musician. Hits were delivered one after another at a rapid pace, including 'Midnight', 'Over And Over', 'Mama Oh Mama', 'Holy Day' and 'Baby Blue'. They are all hits characterised by a catchy rhythm and sing-along quality. Meanwhile, George Baker also wrote hits for BZN, The Shoes, Andy Star and Next One. In 1974, singer Lida Bond joined the George Baker Selection. The vocal combination of Bond & Baker proved to be golden.
Paloma Blanca
In the winter of 1975, George Baker wrote the hit that made him world-famous: 'Paloma Blanca'. "Initially, Paloma Blanca was an instrumental number. It was intended as a closer for a new album recorded with a large orchestra. Those orchestra members were completely crazy about 'Paloma Blanca'. They thought I should write lyrics for it. Well, that's what I did then." 'Paloma Blanca' became the biggest hit of George Baker's career. The single topped the charts for weeks in the Netherlands and Germany. Also in England, America and dozens of other countries, 'Paloma Blanca' achieved top positions. Worldwide, more than seven million copies of 'Paloma Blanca' were sold. This makes the song one of the best-selling singles ever released by a Dutch artist or group.
Kite Runner
After the worldwide success of 'Paloma Blanca', George Baker continued to score hits with and without his George Baker Selection. These include successes such as 'All My Love', 'The Wind' and 'Santa Lucia By Night'. George Baker also remained successful abroad. For example, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino used the song 'Little Green Bag' in his cult film Reservoir Dogs in 1992. As a result, the single became a hit again. The same happened with 'Paloma Blanca', which became a hit again in 2005 thanks to the Dutch feature film Vet Hard. Three years later, 'Paloma Blanca' was used again in a film; this time in the adaptation of the famous book Kite Runner (De Vliegeraar) by the Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini.
Anniversary
In 2008, George Baker celebrated his fortieth anniversary as an artist. He did so with the theatre show 40 Years Greatest Hits: George Baker Live. The recording of this theatre show was released on DVD in November. He also wrote a song for the new album of the Drenthe folk singer Jannes. During the celebration of 50 Years of Nederpop, George Baker stole the show with spectacular performances of his two biggest hits.
Top 2000
In the Top 2000 of 2020, the George Baker Selection is represented with two songs. At 1854 is Paloma Blanca and at 745 is Little Green Bag.
Sunday Morning Classic
On 12 September 2021, The George Baker Selection was our Sunday Morning Classic with the album Little Green Bag.
Little Green Bag was recorded at the Soundpush Studio in Blaricum, then one of the best-equipped sound studios in the Netherlands. Richard de Bois acted as music producer; on the American pressing, Jerry Ross (head of Colossus Records) is listed as producer. Behind the controls was Dick Bakker. Musicians were Hans Bouwens (vocals, guitar), Job Netten (rhythm guitar), Jan Visser (bass guitar), Jacques Greuter (organ), Richard de Bois (drums, percussion) and Ton Vredenburg (tambourine). The song is based on a riff that Jan Visser had been playing for some time to warm up his fingers. De Bois arranged the whole and simultaneously played the drums; the band's own drummer would not have been able to handle it. Bouwens reportedly got the vocal on tape in one take.
The title and the lyrics are based on a mondegreen, misunderstood words. The song is actually about an American dollar bill, a little greenback – not a little green bag, so not a green pouch or bag, with green marijuana? – that the lonely singer, who is searching for happiness, cannot find day or night. The first two lines in English, each with triple internal rhyme – back, track, bag and find, kind, mind – are:
Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag,
Got to find just the kind or I'm losin' my mind
Little Green Bag was released as a single by the record label Negram, together with the B-side Pretty Little Dreamer, not from the album. The song reached 9th place in the Dutch Top 40 and 6th place in the Dutch Hilversum 3 Top 30. In the summer of 1970, it reached 16th position in the Cash Box magazine charts and 21st position in the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. It is estimated that three million copies were sold. In 1972, Little Green Bag was released as the B-side of the single The Prisoner; this song, which became a blue-eyed soul classic in Suriname, is also from the Little Green Bag album.
In 1992, the single was successfully used as the intro of Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs, with credit to the authors Jan Gerbrand Visser and Benjamino Bouwens, and the song also reached number 1 in the Japanese charts after being used in a Japanese whisky commercial. In 1999, the single was re-released and returned to the Dutch Top 40 for six weeks. In total, this song spent seventeen weeks in this chart.
According to his own account, Hans Bouwens was able to quit working in the lemonade factory with the money he earned from his Little Green Bag song and fully focus on his musical career.
Other versions
Already in 1970, the first covers of Little Green Bag appeared; that year it was recorded by I Punti Cardinali (La Borsetta Verde, meaning the green handbag), the Canadian singer Bobby Le Clerc (C'est Pourquoi) and the then 17-year-old Italian singer Nada (Un Passatempo). The best-known cover is by Tom Jones in collaboration with the Canadian group Barenaked Ladies for his album Reload from 1999. In 2007, the version by The Ventures appeared.
George made some commercials for Lidl in which his song Little Green Bag was rewritten as Lidl Green Bag and later Lidl Brown Bag, performed by Ali B.
The Advertising Code Committee (RCC) reprimanded Lidl for the bread commercial with George Baker. The TV commercial is misleading because it suggests that '5 rolls for €1' applies to all rolls, while that is not the case. Baker looks into the camera while standing at the checkout: 'My name may be Baker, but I don't bake my own bread. Certainly not for that money.' Then 5 rolls appear on screen, a striking orange banner with the text '5 rolls €1,- All combinations possible' and an image of the (brown) bread bag.
(source NPO, Wikipedia and various sites)
